thoughts, words, deeds

the things we put in our mouths . . .

Fun Fact Friday! On this day in 1993, ostrich meat was officially declared fit for human consumption in France. What's the strangest food you've ever tried, or would want to try?

Now, I know that this question deals with strange food, but I really can’t remember. I mean, I’ve lived all over the states, and there are places where okra or rhubarb would be considered strange, and other places where they would be a treat. Since I’ve lived in the Southern US, I’ve grown to like fried okra (I don’t terribly like it in gumbo, but that’s mostly the soup factor, not the gumbo itself) and my grandma from Ohio had rhubarb in her backyard, so I’ve eaten rhubarb pie for most of my life (people who live here don’t even know what rhubarb is—when we find it at the store, the cashier doesn’t even know how to look it up).

The strangest food I’ve ever eaten that I would never willingly eat again is mushy peas. This is something that I found when I spent eighteen months in England, sometimes eating meals with people I knew, who were perfectly willing to feed me things like Yorkshire puddings and parsnips (which are quite good, by the way, even though it’s hard to find them here) and steak and kidney pie (which I’ve grown to tolerate, although the taste of innards is not my favorite). But then they put this green stuff on my plate, which kind of looks like peas that have been boiled until the skins crack. Then they are canned with mint and served to unsuspecting people who have never eaten peas with mint that have cracked, chewy skins mixed in with the more edible parts. Not my favorite. When I told my parents about it, they couldn’t get over the fact that they are literally called (with actual words on the actual can they are sold in) Mushy Peas.

A family favorite that most people consider strange and potentially inedible is a sandwich that my father discovered when he was about nineteen and eating peanut butter with everything. That is a peanut butter and tomato sandwich. Peanut butter on one slice of bread, miracle whip or mayo on the other, and tomatoes in between, and then eat. It’s actually very good—peanut butter and mayo go well together, when they have something between them to separate them, and the tomatoes do that nicely. But I’ve never been able to convince a non family member to try.

I’m willing to try anything once. As long as I have a good idea how much insulin to take for it.